Recent stories relating to TS Eliot
Journal of the TS Eliot Society, 2013, June 2013
The 2013 issue of the Society’s Journal will be published, as always, on the first day of the Festival. For details of the content, click here.
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First, Hogarth Press Edition of The Waste Land to be auctioned, June 2013
One of the rare First Editions of The Waste Land, hand-printed by the Woolfs at the Hogarth Press, is to be auctioned at Bonham’s later this month. Details, and an enlargeable photo of this rare edition, are here. The book had been donated to an Oxfam Bookshop – full story here.
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Eliot art collection to be auctioned, May 2013
Valerie Eliot’s “domestic” collection of art, purchased with royalties from Eliot’s works including the musical Cats, is to be auctioned later this year. The works hung in their apartment; an image can be seen here. Artists in the collection include Turner, Gainsborough, Constable and Bacon. Details can be read here.
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Call for papers, TS Eliot Society (US), May 2013
The US TS Eliot Society is inviting proposals for papers to be presented at its annual meeting in St Louis in September 2013. Details here.
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TS Eliot’s Little Gidding in the Order of Service for the Funeral of Baroness Thatcher, April 2013
Lines from Little Gidding have been chosen to form part of the Order of Service for the Funeral of Baroness Thatcher.
According to the Downing St website, “TS Eliot was a particular favourite, which is why she chose Little Gidding from Four Quartets for the service.”
The extract published within the Order of Service (which you can see here) is, however, an edited combination of lines from section V of the poem; lines 214-216, followed by lines 228-242.
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The Waste Land iPad app updated, April 2013
The interactive iPad version of The Waste Land has been updated, to include the recent reading of the poem by Jeremy Irons and Eileen Atkins.
Although it is not stated in the publicity material, this is the version recorded for, and originally broadcast on, BBC Radio 4 in March 2012. It has not been available for listening since then.
The app now also allows readers to make their own notes on the poem. Purchasers of the original app may update to the new version free of charge.
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East Coker Development Plan – hearings announced, March 2013
The formal Examination of plans for the development of East Coker will begin on 7th May.
Dates of the public hearing are here - and full details of the Local Plan Examination are here.
The East Coker Society website is here.
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TS Eliot’s pen replaces Dickens’s quill at Royal Literary Society, March 2013
A pen given to Eliot as a boy, and bequeathed to the Royal Literary Society by Valerie Eliot, replaces Dicken’s quill as the pen with which newly-elected Fellows sign the Roll Book. The pen can be seen more clearly in the subsequent Telegraph article here.
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Tarantula’s Web: John Hayward, T.S. Eliot and their Circle, by John Smart (Michael Russell) ISBN 978-0-85955-324-7
A new book on John Hayward, the figure at the centre of Eliot’s literary London. There is an illuminating article by the author which can be downloaded in Word format here, a review by DJ Taylor in The Spectator here and a longer piece by Adrian Barlow, Chair of the English Association and series editor of Cambridge Contexts in Literature, about both the book and Hayward here.
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Reviews of The Letters of TS Eliot, Vol 4 1928-29 edited by Valerie Eliot & John Haffenden, Faber, £40 – publication 17 January 2013
The Observer - Adam Mars-Jones
The Independent - Lesley Macdowell
The Times - John Sutherland (subscription needed)
The Telegraph – Juliet Nicolson
The Scotsman & London Evening Standard – David Sexton
The Spectator – DJ Taylor
The Financial Times – Henry Hitchings
New Republic – a US article taking a broader look at Eliot and his letters
(There has also been an entertaining spoof of Eliot’s Letters by John Crace, published in The Guardian)
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East Coker loses planning battle, January 2013
(A letter from the South Somerset District Council to our Chairman containing links to the full planning documents, and an explanation of the public hearings planned for May this year, can be read here: East Coker council letter)
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TS Eliot in Baghdad – an interview with the author, January 2013
Abdul Sattar Jawad Al Mamouri, visiting Professor of Comparative Literature and Middle East Studies at Duke University, recently completed a book that examines the influence of Eliot’s poetry on the 1950s Arab Free Verse Movement that began in Baghdad and spread across the Arab world. Jawad is known for his Arabic translation of The Waste Land.
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Four Quartets through the lens of music, Postgraduate English journal, issue 25, December 2012
Jeremy Diaper, University of Birmingham, takes an interdisciplinary approach in an article which allows one “to see just how penetrating the notion of music is within [Four Quartets].” The journal is published through the University of Durham’s Research in English.
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Call for Papers, American Literature Association, December 2012
The Annual Conference of the ALA, to be held in Boston in May 2013, will host two sessions sponsored by the US TS Eliot Society – proposals are invited by January 2013
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TS Eliot included in Ordinariate breviary, December 2012
The Tablet reports that, among its “post-Biblical” readings, the first editions of the breviary for the Ordinariate, the Customary of Our Lady of Walsingham, include writings by TS Eliot. The editors say it is hard to think of a parallel where non-Catholic writers have been included in a prayer book sanctioned by the Catholic Church.
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New TS Eliot publications mooted, November 2012
Following the death of the poet’s widow (below), The Observer discusses the prospect of a new biography, and the possibility of publication for the first time of the weekly love poems which TS Eliot wrote to his wife. In The Sunday Times (subscription required) Lyndall Gordon, author of a previous Eliot biography, considers what letters between the two may reveal.
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Valerie Eliot – 1926-2012
We note with sadness the passing of Valerie Eliot, the second wife and later widow of TS Eliot, whose death has just been confirmed.
“To whom I owe the leaping delight
That quickens my senses in our wakingtime
And the rhythm that governs the repose of our sleepingtime”
Obituaries:
The Times (preview only – subscription required)
Huffington Post (contains interesting photo gallery)
Personal Reminiscences:
David Morley– and, in its Comments, Graham Fletcher
David Barrie – on Valerie Eliot and the Becket Casket
Bruce Ross-Smith – on her editing of TS Eliot’s letters
Leslie Morris – of the Houghton Library, Harvard
Rick Gekoski – on Valerie as a collector and more
Articles
Valerie Eliot, keeper of the TS Eliot flame – The Guardian
East Coker graveyard to reunite TS Eliot and widow Valerie – This Is Somerset
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Annual TS Eliot Cambridge Lecture 2012
Details have been announced of this year’s Annual TS Eliot Cambridge Lecture, to be delivered by Dr Jeremy Noel-Tod on 14th November. For full details click here.
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TS Eliot: East and West – Call for Papers
Proposals are invited for a session to be included in the Sixth World Congress of International American Studies Association (IASA), which will be held on 3-6 August 2013 in Szczecin, Poland. Click here for full details.
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TS Eliot and the other Arts – Call for Papers
Abstracts are invited for a collection of essays exploring intermedial dimensions of TS Eliot’s poetry and thought – click here for full details.
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East Coker
A poetic video of the village, produced to support the Save East Coker campaign.
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Colloquium – Religion, Philosophy & Myth in TS Eliot’s poetry – University of Leicester
The British Association of Modernist Studies is calling for papers for this important colloquium, to be held in September 2013. Submission deadline is March 2013. Full details here.
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East Coker Planning Objection – update and thanks, August 2012
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TS Eliot Materialized: new publication announced, August 2012
TS Eliot Materialized – Literal Meaning and Embodied Truth, by G Douglas Atkins, Professor of English at the University of Kansas, is due to be published on 30th October 2012 by Palgrave Macmillan. Author of several previous books on Eliot, the publishers say that “In this lively and accessible book, G. Douglas Atkins moves beyond the familiar ‘deep’ readings and challenges the familiar notion of Eliot as bent on escaping this world for the spiritual world.”
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Original Eliot correspondence acquired by Turnbull Library, August 2012
Part of the National Library of New Zealand has acquired papers from the family of John Middleton Murry, second husband of NZ author Katherine Mansfield, which includes correspondence between the author and TS Eliot.
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East Coker – Development Objection – August 2012
We’ve been asked at short notice to circulate the attached appeal for objections to the planned development of East Coker, the inspirational village where Eliot is interred.
Letter of Objection (downloadable Word document) NB This must be completed with your full name and address before submission.
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TS Eliot and Sherlock Holmes – July 2012
A Sherlockian makes a connection?
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TS Eliot’s The Waste Land 2012 – A multimedia walk – July 2012
The Guardian’s report on a guided tour of London, “city of fragments”, to the backdrop of Eliot’s poem.
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Reviews of The Letters of TS Eliot, Vol III 1926-27 edited by Valerie Eliot & John Haffenden, Faber, £40 – publication 5 July 2012
The Guardian Review – Paul Batchelor
Saturday Independent – Brian Morton
Literary Review – David Collard
The Observer – Craig Raine
The Independent – Lesley McDowell
London Evening Standard – David Sexton
New Statesman – Adam Kirsch
Church Times – Richard Harries
Washington Times – Matthew Walther
(Reviews in Prospect by DJ Taylor; The Spectator by Philip Hensher; and The Sunday Times by John Carey, are available only to subscribers to those publications)
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Seventh Annual TS Eliot Festival, Programme & Booking
The programme of talks, readings, music and celebration has been announced for the seventh Annual TS Eliot Festival, taking place at Little Gidding, 7-8 July 2012
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Ten of The Best: TS Eliot Quotes used as book titles, June 2012
Chosen by The Guardian’s John Mullan
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I will show you Arcade Fire in a handful of dust: why pop music loves TS Eliot, May 2012
Dorian Linsky explores in The Guardian how David Bowie, Bob Dylan, PJ Harvey, Manic Street Preachers, Thom Yorke and others owe a debt to TS Eliot
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President Obama on TS Eliot, May 2012
An excerpt from a forthcoming biography of Barack Obama includes an extract from a letter written by Obama to a former girlfriend, in which he puts forward his views on Eliot and The Waste Land.
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St Andrews University, School of English News, May 2012
Professor Robert Crawford wins Senior Research Fellowship to work on volume one of his TS Eliot biography
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Fashion label Duchamp adapts Eliot’s dedication to his wife for its London Spring/Summer window display, April 2012
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East Coker: “TS Eliot’s villagers” to fight on as housing development plan is approved, April 2012
(Read earlier coverage of East Coker’s planning battle in The Independent and visit the Save East Coker campaign website)
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Faber confirm July 2012 publication of The Letters of TS Eliot Vol 3
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Fans of the iPad version of The Waste Land may enjoy this fascinating lecture by its designer, Hilary Kenna, March 2012
